"We are the only OECD state where some get back more than they pay in income tax"

Hi Brendan,

Is there a calculator for this?
A married couple with 4 kids are getting €3,240 a year on top of the €34,143 amount in the article you posted above. That means they are up into the mid €40,000's earned income wise before they are paying any net income taxes (PRSI, PAYE and USC are all just income taxes). When you take the social transfer into account, the cost of funding their state pension, the cost of educating their children, state infrastructure and state employees etc the gap looks massive.
It all just backs up the fact that it is the top 20% of earners who are paying for everything.

The next time you see a rich person do remember to thank them!
 

I know of a chap working part time earning €12500 per year. He has a wife and 4 kids, three of whom are in college. He gets FIS of €18700 per year and the three grants come in at €26700. His total disposable income is €57900 per annum. If this guy gets a job for €50k, and contributes to the state coffers his kids have to give up college as he cant afford it. Zero joined up thinking in this country and that is one of the main problems.
 
I just checked and yes we have a negative tax rate.
(4 in family,1 average wage earner)
 
With Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit in the UK, I would have thought that low earners there face a negative income tax............??
 
vandriver said:
I just checked and yes we have a negative tax rate.
(4 in family,1 average wage earner)
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I don't have to check, with two incomes and no children, I know I am paying through the neck.
However, as I'm now older and hopefully wiser, I do believe that those with children should be subsidised. After all, who is going to pay my pension when I stop working?
 
I'm just curious!
Two 50 grand salaries would be a 27% tax take.Two 75 grand salaries would be a 34% tax take.
Is this 'paying through the neck'?
 
vandriver said:
I'm just curious!
Two 50 grand salaries would be a 27% tax take.Two 75 grand salaries would be a 34% tax take.
Is this 'paying through the neck'?
Click to expand...
The issue is the marginal tax rate; why work harder or start a business etc when you will be paying well over half of everything extra you earn in tax.
We need to reduce tax rates, reduce allowances and get everyone paying some tax. The net tax take would be the same but the unfair burden on higher earners would be lessened. The reality is we have a squeezed rich, an under-taxed middle and low earners don't pay any tax.
 
The problem is the undertaxed middle is convinced that they pay way more tax than they actually do.
 
vandriver said:
I'm just curious!
Two 50 grand salaries would be a 27% tax take.Two 75 grand salaries would be a 34% tax take.
Is this 'paying through the neck'?
Click to expand...
I was using the expression for emphasis.
There are two salaries, one of 70 and one of 30 (part-time).
As Purple said, the marginal rate is 50% tax. Any extra money I earn is halved in take-home pay.
I don't want to de-rail the thread, but I don't feel overtaxed. Maybe because I don't have the added expense of children. I know friends who have, and agree that the cost is staggering. But then again, they need to be able to afford (in my opinion), to send them to college, so they get well paying jobs and fund both the government pension, and also my employers pension fund.
 
Any comparison between Ireland and the UK (and similar countries with fully funded public health systems) that doesn't take into account the expenses on private medical insurance, prescription medicines, GPS etc is very misleading... unclear if this report factors in the USC and PRSI that Irish workers pay and get nothing back in return.
 
"If raised to Danish or German levels, a single person in Ireland would pay over €5,000 more in tax on an income of about €24,000."

That's shocking. Of course we won't hear Ruth Coppinger et al celebrating this!
 
Reality check !

Receiving more in Social Welfare than you pay in tax is not a negative rate of taxation. I am surprised that many contributors on here, who know exactly what a tax rate is, are providing convoluted arguments to make point that will be meaningless to reasonable people. Tax rates may be too low, SW rates may be too high, it is just misleading to conflate the two.

Higher tax rates kick in at a very low a rate in this country. The SW system is heavily weighted to supporting children. These are realities of policy in Ireland, obscure mental gymnastics to try to show that certain families have a negative tax rate distract from any discussion of these policies.
 
Purple said:
Ideally we'd all be funding our own pensions with nothing coming from the State (and so less PRSI to pay).
Click to expand...

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how providing an income in retirement works.

Briefly, it doesn't matter who owns the factory, the first call on its income must go to the workers, or nothing will get done. Your pension assets are may put you personally at the head of the queue when it comes to income in retirement, but that does nothing to solve the problem of there not being enough income available after paying labour to go around among the projected number of pensioners in the future.
 
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